Kogan feels growing pains in record holiday half

Dean Blake

29th Jan 2021

Kogan Group saw seven of its biggest trading days ever during the Black Friday period, with its first half recording sales growth of 96 per cent and earnings growth of 140 per cent.

The marketplace’s active customers broke 3 million during the half, as more and more Australians turned to online retail.

However, the business said it tackled “significant” challenges caused by this growth, and that keeping up with the extreme demand is an engineering, supply chain and logistical effort.

“We are proud to have delivered another record half while undertaking significant investments into the future of the business,” said Kogan founder and chief executive Ruslan Kogan.

“We are investing into building strong customer relationships by investing in our logistics capability, our marketing reach and our systems and infrastructure – giving us the foundation to continue delighting customers as the business further scales.”

On Black Friday Kogan sold 124,000 items to 63,000 unique customers, more than an item per second, and served 253,000 customers throughout that week alone – earning its first week of more than $10 million in sales.

Recently acquired furniture brand Matt Blatt had its first $1 million week of gross sales during the Black Friday period, and Mighty Ape saw active customers hit 719,000 during the half.